Investment grade bonds data: Hover over the charts to see the values at a given date. iBoxx EUR Corporates Index data provided by Markit Group Ltd.

These charts are updated monthly.

i) Euro Investment Grade Bond Index: Corporate Spreads

The period from late 2007 through to Q1 2009 coincided with the greatest widening in credit spreads ever seen. The excess systemic leverage/structured product bid leading to very tight spreads markets in the preceding 2003-2007 period was spectacularly undone.

We recovered hard in 2009 once the central bank easing began with money looking for a home in cheap, high yielding corporate bonds. 2009 coincided with the greatest spread tightening era ever seen.

While corporate bond markets sold off in late 2011-2012, we have seen a good recovery since. The compression trade, between high and low beta corporate bonds all the way down to and including the HY market was a key feature in the 2012-2014 years.

IG Issuance

IG Deals in Detail

IG Fund Performance

ii) Investment Grade Bond Index: Corporate Spreads 2015-

Following a more difficult August when spreads in the iBoxx index widened 10bp, we had a decent tightening in September even as supply levels increased. So good demand for those issues also saw secondary in better shape and the index has tightened to B+130bp (end of Sept, -5bp in the month).

The ECB was back to lifting ca.€4bn of IG non-financial corporate bonds per month (in September) after the rate of activity slowed through August to a monthly rate closer to €2bn.

Financials didn’t outperform though, as has been the case for much of the past year or so. They have come under pressure as rates have moved higher but also as tensions have been elevated in particular on the Italian political scene.

iii) Investment Grade Bond Index: Corporate Yields

Yields from investment grade bonds have backed up from the 2017 lows but the overall firmness in the underlying has helped keep them at still relatively low levels. We have been as low as 0.88% on the index and as high as 1.80%, but we have been in a 1.30% index yield area for much of the period from May (end Sept at 1.39%). Spreads are wider in that period but geopolitical and macro concerns have supplied a good bid for government bonds which has offset that spread weakness.

The chart shows how the corporate bond market has benefited from QE – the need for investors to buy safe, higher-yielding assets while the high levels of demand have promoted the disintermediation in funding for the corporate sector. Event risk largely around US politics (Trump/China/trade wars) and to a lesser extent Brexit have prevented underlying yields from popping materially higher.